Sheilz

Sorry, for another question. I've done a couple more embroidery designs and wanted to know if anyone has any tips on how to prevent puckering around the edges. Thank you

PaperPrincess

I'm assuming that you are doing machine embroidery? If you hoop your fabric, don't over tighten. The embroidered portion will remain stretched, and when you un hoop, the rest of the fabric will relax creating puckers. I'm a non hooper. I hoop my stabilizer, then lay the fabric on top, using a spray adhesive and or pins (far away from the embroidery). Use the smallest hoop that will accommodate your design. You can also experiment with different weights of stabilizers.
The best bit of advice I got when I took lessons with my new embroidery machine was to make intelligent choices on the design/fabric pairing. Heavy, dense designs will be most successful on heavy dense fabric which will support all those stitches. Choose less intense stitch designs for lighter fabrics.

Stashelf

if the design is more than 10,000 stitches you should use a second layer of stabilizer. You float it under the hoop at a slight angle. if you are not hooping your material you can always add a basting stitch as the first step in the embroidery

Dolphyngyrl

Check out emblibrary for tips. http://www.emblibrary.com/el/ELProjects/Default.aspx
Stabilizer depends on fabric. the stretchy including quilters cotton needs a cutaway. I would also choose a fusible product as it creates less puckering, and if extremely dense you might have to float extra tearaway under the hoop. Its hard to know what tips to offer without more info like what fabric and stabilizer you are using. Also don't pull the fabric tight when you hoop, that also creates distortion. I am currently taking a floriani event and it is very good for learning your stabilizers and what they can do

Sheilz

Thank you this is very helpful. I have just been experimenting with the embroidery function with ordinary cotton I'd used in a kiddies quilt (kona solids). The stabilizer I bought is marathon can't at moment remember the weight but it is quite strong material. From what has been said here I'm pretty sure the answer is I've over tightened the fabric in the hoop. This is a relief because I wasn't too keen on the idea of tug of war/arm wrestling kind of battle I was having yesterday. It crossed my mind that if I was having this kind of battle with light cotton I'd struggle with a quilt! Speaking of which, and this really highlights my woeful knowledge, is it necessary to hoop a quilt sandwich to use some of the set patterns in the machines memory? Till now I've only ever free motioned my quilts either free hsnd or using a template and marker pen.

PaperPrincess

You have to hoop something. Some folks hoop the whole sandwich, some just hoop a wash away stabilizer and lay the sandwich on top. To be honest, while many folks quilt an entire quilt on their embroidery machine, I haven't been very successful. I have, however, done several QAYG. Just embroider/quilt a block at a time, then join with sashing. I hooped just the backing.
This has been discussed many times and if you do a search on the board you should get many tips.

joyce blint

So thankful for this information. I just finished doing some rather dense embroidery for a friend and was troubled w the puckering. Altho she was happy with it, I wasn't entirely. I'll have to remember these hints next time!
Seems my problem was I kept tightening the hoop, when I should have been loosening it!

ThreadHead

I found that if I am doing an embroidery that is larger than the size of a quarter to a 50 cent piece, I use two tear away stabilizers
I bought a window film from a construction company for 45.00 that will last me the rest of my life. It's what they put on windows to keep the windows clean when they are putting mortar on the outside of houses. It is a lightweight film with a sticky back, that is all I hoop. I run a glue stick around the inside hoop on the sticky back. I then lay my material to be embroidered on the sticky back and smooth it. If I were embroidering a grape-- one stabilizer, a lemon--two stabilizers, an apple or orange -- three stabilizers. I have my stabilizers cut a little larger than the size of the hoop.

cmierley

Very interesting.